Legal Commentary

Bloggers agree: Obama foreign policy not very good. Both parties deserves blame for public?s low opinion of Congress

By David Kopel

This week?s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked for a grade for President Obama?s foreign policy. The average grade from the Left was a C. From the Right, it was a D-. I gave him the highest grade of any voter, which was a B, and explained: ?Finally did the right thing on the Afghanistan surge. His most important speech to the world ? in Oslo ? was magnificent. Badly mishandled Honduras at the start by opposing the lawful removal of Zelaya, but no long-term harm was done.? Next year?s grade might be much lower, in that the shared Clinton-Bush-Obama policy of all talk and no action about Iran?s nuclear weapons development may get to the terminal point of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

Question 2 asked the Left ?How much is the Democratic Party to blame for Congress? low standing in the polls?? The Right was asked the same question about Republicans. Eighty-six percent of the Left said that Democrats were a ?a great deal? or ?somewhat? to blame. On the Right, nobody said that Republicans bore ?a great deal? of the blame, but 57%, including me, voted for ?somewhat.? I wrote: ?When the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, they came in as reformers; by 2006, the Republicans had become participants in a culture of corruption (in both legal and illegal forms), and of abuse of the rights of the minority party. In 2007, the Democrats took power and promised reform, but they are acting just as corruptly and abusively (perhaps even more so). No wonder the public is cynical.?

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on December 18, 2009 (boomark / email).